“Receiver” is a term widely used in the plastics industry to denote devices that temporarily hold granular plastic resin material before the granular plastic resin material is loaded into a hopper for subsequent processing by a compression or injection molding press or an extruder.
Receivers typically include a vacuum chamber that effectively pulls granular plastic resin material into the receiver due to vacuum existing within the vacuum chamber. A vacuum pump is directly or indirectly connected to the receiver to create the vacuum required to pull granular plastic resin material into the receiver. This facilitates moving the granular plastic resin material from a typically remote location to the receiver, which typically feeds a hopper. The receiver, and the vacuum pump are typically part of a larger resin conveying system that conveys the granular plastic resin from a supply to the receiver.
Receivers may be located over surge bins or over other temporary storage units in addition to hoppers.
Receivers typically load in cycles. Specifically, the receiver loads with granular plastic resin material and then discharges the granular plastic resin material in one operating cycle. Accordingly, a receiver requires a collection bin or surge hopper below the receiver to collect the falling granular plastic resin material to be fed to the process machine.
Typically, the vacuum source is remote, namely it is not integrated into the receiver itself. The receiver, in its most simple, elementary form, is a simple chamber that has a vacuum line connected to it to pull air from the chamber to create vacuum inside the chamber. The vacuum then draws granular plastic resin material into the chamber portion of the receiver. The receiver accordingly has a material line connected to it for granular plastic resin material to be pulled by the vacuum into the strong chamber portion of the receiver. Since the receiver has a storage portion with a relatively large volume and a large cross-sectional area relative to the conduit through which the air/vacuum and granular resin material mixture travels, when the granular resin material/vacuum stream mixture reaches the receiver interior, speed of the moving air/vacuum stream drops. The kinetic energy of the stream is no longer sufficient to carry the granular resin, so the resin falls to the bottom of the receiver.